Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott Surpasses 30,000 Members

The Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott Group on Steam is growing at a very fast rate. At this time of writing, the group has just surpassed 30,000 members since its creation on June 2.

The boycott’s momentum is showing no signs of slowing down. New members from all across the globe are joining the group on a regular basis, united in protest against Valve’s Left 4 Dead sequel.

A Malaysian member of the group, known by his nickname Doufoos, said his main concern about the sequel was that it was going to split the Left 4 Dead community into two.

“There is nothing worse than a broken community,” he said. “Where half the players remain in L4D while the other half choose to move forward.”

“Also, most people feel that they are being cheated, and I can’t blame them. They had to go through all of the bugs in the intitial release of Left 4 Dead, were promised new content… like new infected, new maps and new weapons… and then suddenly a sequel is announced.”

The only significant “new content” offered by Valve so far has been the new Survival mode and two Versus campaigns released in a major update back in April.

Doufoos’ concerns are reflected in the boycott group’s manifesto, in which they believe the “stand-alone sequel will split the communities and decrease the quality of multiplayer gaming.”

Members of the group also believe the content of the sequel “does not warrant a stand-alone, full-priced sequel and should instead become updates (free or otherwise) for Left 4 Dead. The release of Left 4 Dead 2 will make Left 4 Dead an obsolete purchase and inferior piece of software after only one year since release”.

Valve’s Chet Faliszek, in a statement released to CVG, has asked for gamers to be patient with the developers and to give the sequel a chance to prove itself.

“Give us a fair shake on this, read more about it, find out about it, we’ve already let people play it,” Mr Faliszek said. “After that, if you want to vent, post to the forums. We do read them, we read all the forums.”

In another statement released to Kotaku, Valve’s president Gabe Newell, promised that they will continue to support the original game with updates even after the sequel has been released.

“Some in the community are concerned that the announcement of L4D2 implied a change in our plans for L4D1. We aren’t changing our plans for L4D1,” Mr Newell said. “We see no reason to change that and will continue to support the over three million customers in the L4D1 community.”

What are your thoughts on this? Should Left 4 Dead 2 be released as a cheaper “expansion set” to Left 4 Dead 1, or should it remain as a full-priced retail game?